US accuses Pyongyang of planning missile test

North Korea has declared a maritime exclusion zone in the Sea of Japan, signalling it might be planning a missile test in the next few days, the US Defence Department said.

The Pentagon said it was aware of a three-day exclusion warning from yesterday until Tuesday in the area off the North Korean coast where Pyongyang tested an anti-ship missile in February.

"We are certainly aware that they have filed a notice of exclusion," said US Navy Lieutenant Commander Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. "That is typically a precursor to a missile test. But we're not overly concerned." The declaration of temporary exclusion zones is common practice for naval exercises. The US State Department said after the February 25 test that it was a short-range anti-ship cruise missile.

The stand-off over North Korea's nuclear ambitions has complicated the Bush Administration's focus on Iraq. Critics have accused Mr Bush of allowing Iraq to distract him from the North Korean crisis.

The US announced in October that Pyongyang had admitted to pursuing a covert program to enrich uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons. ");document.write("

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Although Mr Bush has in the past put North Korea together with Iraq and Iran as part of an "axis of evil", he has said repeatedly that he believes multilateral diplomacy is the best way to deal with the present nuclear crisis.

"This is a regional issue ... because there's a lot of countries that have got a direct stake in whether or not North Korea has a nuclear weapon," he told a news conference yesterday, mentioning Japan, South Korea, Russia and China.

"We're working the issue hard and I'm optimistic we'll come up with a diplomatic solution," he said.

China and Russia have resisted US entreaties to put pressure on the North to agree to multilateral talks.

And Pyongyang, which has said it will talk only to Washington and rejects a multilateral format, repeated its demand for bilateral negotiations.

"As far as the ... much-publicised nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is concerned, it can surely be solved if the US has a will to settle it through dialogues and negotiations with the DPRK [North Korea]," the official KCNA news agency said.

Speaking before the announcement of the exclusion zone, South Korea's defence ministry expressed deep concern over recent North Korean military actions. It said North Korea was "making tension on the Korean Peninsula" and undermining world efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis.

Four North Korean MiG fighter jets buzzed a US spy plane in international airspace last Sunday and a similar plane violated South Korean airspace last month.

Washington has said it will protest to North Korea but, without diplomatic ties, it must use unconventional channels that have in the past resulted in talks.

US B-52 and B-1 bombers landed on the Pacific island of Guam this week as a deterrent to Pyongyang in the event of a US-led war against Iraq. KCNA called the deployment part of US preparations for a "pre-emptive attack".

North Korea expelled UN nuclear inspectors in December and pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in January. Last week, Washington said North Korea had fired up a reactor believed capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.